‘Devastating’

“Ministers and senior officials at the Home Office under successive governments have resisted telling Parliament of the true extent of taxpayer-funded mistakes in undertaking this program,” he told the Telegraph.

“This has been a £1 billion waste of money.

“The real concern is the warnings index, which with two priority incidents a week is still clearly unfit for purpose.

“A failure to properly cover millions of people entering the country without having passenger information in advance gives a green light to people who wish to come to the UK for illegal or dangerous activity.”

The report said a high turnover of staff on the program has caused issues. It also said the Home Office is “weak” at gathering data.

The Home Office admitted it should have been “even more critical in highlighting probable failure.”